Will AI replace Veterinarians?
AI reaches some of this job’s work, but most of it stays with people.
22/100
Moderate exposure
More exposed to AI than 38% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 5% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 41% of the work
What the job involves
Diagnose, treat, or research diseases and injuries of animals. Includes veterinarians who conduct research and development, inspect livestock, or care for pets and companion animals.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Already happening(1)
- Advise animal owners regarding sanitary measures, feeding, general care, medical conditions, or treatment options.
Within reach(9)
- Educate the public about diseases that can be spread from animals to humans.
- Operate diagnostic equipment, such as radiographic or ultrasound equipment, and interpret the resulting images.
- Counsel clients about the deaths of their pets or about euthanasia decisions for their pets.
- Attend lectures, conferences, or continuing education courses.
- Conduct postmortem studies and analyses to determine the causes of animals' deaths.
and 4 more
Out of reach(11)
- Treat sick or injured animals by prescribing medication, setting bones, dressing wounds, or performing surgery.
- Examine animals to detect and determine the nature of diseases or injuries.
- Inoculate animals against various diseases, such as rabies or distemper.
- Collect body tissue, feces, blood, urine, or other body fluids for examination and analysis.
- Euthanize animals.
and 6 more
Also called
Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) · Veterinary Surgeon (Vet Surgeon) · DVM · Equine Vet (Equine Veterinarian) · Equine Vet · Veterinary Microbiologist (Vet Microbiologist) · Vet Microbiologist · Veterinary Pathologist (Vet Pathologist)
Related jobs
What these numbers mean
The score is the share of this job’s work, weighted by how important and frequent each task is, that AI could do in half the time: tasks an AI model could do alone count in full, tasks that need software built on AI count half.
“AI already used” is the share of the work in tasks where people are recorded using AI today. “As AI tools mature” counts every task AI could halve, with or without extra software.
The percentile compares the score with every job’s, weighted by how many people in the US do each one. Exposure means AI could change how the work is done, not that the job goes away. These are estimates for the typical job, not predictions.
Sources
- O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
- GPTs are GPTs: Labor market impact potential of LLMs (task labels), Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin & Rock (2023), OpenAI and University of Pennsylvania
- Anthropic Economic Index: labor market impacts (task penetration), Anthropic
- Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (national and metropolitan areas), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics